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Ransom

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 918 ratings · 195 reviews

A reimagination of one of the most famous stories in all of literature-Achilles's slaughter and desecration of Hector, and Priam's attempt to ransom his son's body in Homer's "The Iliad"-Ransom is the first novel in more than a decade from David Malouf, arguably Australia's greatest living writer.
A novel of suffering, sorrow, and redemption, "Ransom "tells the story of th...more

Hardcover, 224 pages

Published by Random House Australia (first published 2009)

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Jan 21, 2013 Terence rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Lovers of Homer, fans of modern mythic reinterpretations

Recommended to Terence by: Daniel Mendelsohn

Shelves: mythologies

I’ve never liked Achilles but the more times I read The Iliad and related material, the more I’ve come to appreciate the difficulties he faced. Do you act in the world and risk failure or the betrayal of everything you hold true? Or do you – in effect – keep your head down and hope the gods take no notice of you? (I can’t buy into the Bronze Age warrior ethic of Homer nor its modern equivalent but I can understand that fear of acting, and in that sense I have a deep sympathy for Achilles.) Even...more

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May 27, 2012 Kathy Turner rated it 5 of 5 stars

“We are mortals, not gods. We die. Death is in our nature. Without that fee paid in advance, the world does not come to us” (p. 184).
David Malouf in Ransom (2009) re-tells Homer’s story of Priam’s ransom of the body of his son Hector from Achilles. While the Classical world focussed on the role of fate in the lives of Kings and heroes; Malouf writes of the dual role of fate and chance. The re-telling is thus addressed to us, who have forgotten perhaps both the role of fate and that of chance, so...more “We are mortals, not gods. We die. Death is in our nature. Without that fee paid in advance, the world does not come to us” (p. 184).
David Malouf in Ransom (2009) re-tells Homer’s story of Priam’s ransom of the body of his son Hector from Achilles. While the Classical world focussed on the role of fate in the lives of Kings and heroes; Malouf writes of the dual role of fate and chance. The re-telling is thus addressed to us, who have forgotten perhaps both the role of fate and that of chance, so convinced we are that we are masters of our own destiny.
Ransom is deceptively small. It is a short novel (219 small pages with a pleasantly large font). It has, though, the density, profundity, and lightness of the best of poetry. It is not surprising. Malouf is one of Australia’s greatest poets and novelists. The poetic structure of Ransom, is inspired by Homer’s Iliad, which, though 27 centuries old, is stunningly new in its story telling structures with past and future interweaving with the present, allowing a resonance of meaning to build at each point. Malouf’s poetic skill also, as with Homer’s, intensifies meaning. Here is Malouf describing Priam’s trance: “An old, dreamlike passivity in him that he no longer finds it necessary to resist will dissolve the boundary between what is solid and tangible in the world around him-mulberry leaves afloat on their shadows …” (p. 41-2).And here Malouf’s account of Achilles’s rage at Hector, and at himself, for the death of his friend Patroclus. He is dishonouring the body of Hector, great hero of Troy, after killing him in combat: deliberately defying the gods, dragging Hector’s dead body around the barrow holding Patroclus’ remains, seeking a response equal to his pain: “With a jerk of the reins he pulls the horses to the left, and with a great shout sets them off at a furious pace to gallop once, twice, three times around the barrow, the body of Hector, as it tumbles behind, raising a dust cloud that swirls and thickens as if at that spot on the plain a storm had gathered and for long minutes raged and twisted while all around it the world remained still” The story too has been growing in Malouf for almost 70 years, giving the complex ideas time to mature and grow clearer, thus making for the consummate ease with which they are expressed. The conjunction of Homer’s story and his own experience of war and death began when he was a child of nine. In an Afterward to Ransom Malouf writes of a poem Episode from an Earlier War pulling together the war he was caught up in (the American troops in Brisbane, the soldiers coming back from the War, the stories of the war (the ship of children evacuated from England and seeking refuge in Canada torpedoed with 77 children dead) with the story of Troy, and with his ordinary life concerned with sports and bullies and drowned kittens: http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets...#
… At night, fog-bound in mid-Atlantic
my still sleep was choked
with bodies, blind kittens
in the tub where Mrs Allen did our wash
still jerked at arm’s distance, kicking their life out in a sack.
Perhaps it is that conjunction of events and feelings powerfully experienced by Malouf as a child (like an over-determined dream image) which enabled him in Ransom to explore so powerfully the mixture of fate and chance.
Ransom is the story of two men, Achilles, the young Greek warrior, and Priam, the old Trojan King, centering on the act of Priam’s giving ransom for the return of the body of his son Hector. Both stories are built around the concepts of fate and chance set in place when the men were children. For Achilles, it is the chance arrival of Patroclus, who having accidentally killed a playmate, becomes an outcast sent to the court of Achilles' father and who then becomes Achilles’ “soulmate and companion". From that point a central part of Achilles’ fate is set. It is Patroclus’s love of the myrmidons (Achilles’ men) that leads him to take up arms when Achilles has refused to, that leads to his being killed on the battlefield dressed in Achilles' armour, that leads to Achilles' impotent rage for his friends’ death and, more, for his part in it, that leads to his killing Hector and the dishonouring of his body. At this point, Priam’s fate intersects with the fate of Achilles. For just as with Achilles, Priam’s fate has been set by chance. As the child Pordaces he hid, dirty, amongst the children of outcasts as Troy was sacked and burned by Hercules. He is rescued by the ‘fancy’ of his sister, who asks for his return as the gift to be given her as she is taken as a war prize, and by Hercules’ ‘choice’ to offer and agree. Hercules re-names him ‘Priam’ (‘the price paid’) so that he knows always that the life of a slave and that of a king were equally possible, separated only by the chance of his being ransomed. It is this knowledge which allows Priam, faced with Troy’s inevitable fall, his own death, and the rape, destruction, burning and enslavement of its citizens to take the dangerous possibility of ‘chance’ suggested by the goddess Iris who visits him. She points out that he can do something for it is not entirely fate that governs the way things are: “Not the way they must be, but the way they have turned out. In a world that is also subject to chance”.
It is this movement of chance which leads to Priam presenting ‘something new’ to Achilles: himself as an ordinary man, a father. It is the suddenness and unexpected nature of this ransom that allows Achilles to break out of his crazed pain and become “ a perfect order of body, heart, occasion,… the true Achilles, the one he has come all this way to find”. (p. 190). Priam too finds ”a state of exultant well-being” (p. 211). Both men were able to break out of an impossibly tight mould, to open up a new possibility.
We cannot however rest in a ‘happy ending’. We know both men will die soon. We know too that even with stories with happy endings, the living through what really happened and the living with what happened as it becomes our fate is an entirely different matter (as Priam reminds us) … which, on a personal note, leads us back to Malouf and his fate. If the chance encounters of the story of Troy with war and death and the vulnerability of the nine year old child were experienced as my still sleep was choked/with bodies we can see it played out as his fate to circle around these themes, vulnerabilities, and even the images (Priam’s nights are filled with ”the waking dreams that night after night trouble his rest, a burnt-out shell, whose citizens … are the corpses he moves among” (p. 40)).
Malouf, in his Afterword, says Ransom is about story telling about how important it is to tell stories. In an interview on the Australian ABC programme The Book Show (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/p... ) Malouf says of storytelling: ”it enlarges us in some kind of way but it also liberates us in some kind of way. I was very interested recently reading an interview with Umberto Eco where he says that we are narrative creatures, we're creatures for whom narrative is essential to our way of apprehending the world and understanding the world, so that storytelling is absolutely basic to us, and that what we get from storytelling is something we can't do without”.
As Hecuba (Priam’s wife) says Words are powerful. They too can be the agents of what is new, of what is conceivable and can be thought and let loose upon the world”. Malouf’s ideas may well be dangerous. Maybe we, like Hecuba, wish we had misheard. For Malouf is not offering us a concept of ‘chance’ unclothed, as Priam saw it. He is reminding us that all life is a matter of both chance and fate: an entirely different way of looking at the world. And though the Greeks were given the fate by their gods, we like the Greeks in Ransom, are given ours by the price we ”paid in advance” - the knowledge of our fate – our death; and also by those chance conjunctions which resonate as fate through our lives.
This book is a must read for anyone who loves poetry, philosophy, and good story telling.

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Aug 09, 2011 Laura Leaney rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This novel is a new telling of a very small section of Homer's "Iliad," the one where King Priam of Troy infiltrates the camp of Achilles to plead (offer ransom) for the body of his son Hector. This is pretty much all the action of the novel - but Malouf gives an elegiac philosophical grandeur to the scene that is absolutely beautiful. We are now privy to the thoughts of Priam and Achilles, and the complexity of both men - as well as the nuances of their pain and sadnesses - make for compelling...more

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Jan 16, 2010 g rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: greece-and-rome

A quick read, this novel is an interesting reimagining of part of the Trojan War story, where King Priam begs Achilles for the body of his son Hector. The war is taken for granted: its cause is not discussed, and Paris is briefly mentioned only once or twice, Helen not at all. Though the perspective alternates between Achilles' and Priam's, the voice throughout is controlled and thoughtful, more believable as an old king's than a hotheaded young warrior's. Priam's transformation as a character i...more

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Apr 26, 2012 James rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ancient-greece, fiction, mythology, australian-literature

David Malouf begins his retelling of the story with Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus during the Trojan War. Achilles, enraged at his friend's death, slays Hector, Patroclus' killer, and drags Hector's corpse behind a chariot around the walls of Troy. Rage as he does in Homer's original, Achilles terrifying aspect is amplified in comparison. Malouf tries to explain the psychology of Achilles, asking how a man capable of anything takes out his frustration. The narrative then shifts towards...more David Malouf begins his retelling of the story with Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus during the Trojan War. Achilles, enraged at his friend's death, slays Hector, Patroclus' killer, and drags Hector's corpse behind a chariot around the walls of Troy. Rage as he does in Homer's original, Achilles terrifying aspect is amplified in comparison. Malouf tries to explain the psychology of Achilles, asking how a man capable of anything takes out his frustration. The narrative then shifts towards Priam, Hector's father and the King of Troy. Priam cannot stand the abuse of his beloved son's body. Malouf explores this parallel of loss between Priam and Achilles that Homer, in the original Iliad, left unsaid. Unlike the version told by Baricco a goddess intervenes and Priam then explains to Troy that he will make his way to the Greek camp with ransom treasure for Achilles. He hopes to stop his mistreatment of Hector’s body which Queen Hecuba points out is a suicide mission. Priam goes on the journey, despite warnings from his wife. He eventually meets Achilles at his tent, where the exchange is made. Priam appeals to Achilles' conscience, reminding him of his own father, in trying to persuade him to return Hector to Troy for a proper burial.
With the addition of Somax, the most successfully developed character in the entire narrative, Malouf makes certain changes to the original. Malouf takes liberties with the personalities of Priam and Achilles that are not entirely in consonant with their depictions in the Iliad. However, with Somax, Malouf manages to create a perfect character foil for Priam. Like many a royal figure before and after Priam has lived in a cocoon of safety for his entire life and is now forced to exit it to bury his son. Somax, who has by no means lived any life of luxury, unintentionally teaches Priam about the world outside of the palace: he is both ordinary and he is not the type of person that normally would have anything to do with the royal family, yet he is enthused with the opportunity. A delight to read as always, despite differences to the original, Malouf is successful in creating his own characters. (less)

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Apr 04, 2012 Chuck Lowry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Chuck by: My friends at Faulkner House

Most people fasten on this book as an interesting retelling of the story of the combat of Achilles and Hector and the ransoming of Hector's body by his father King Priam. I was not so crazy about it from that perspective; I prefer Homer and from the point of view of simple narrative, I did not see anything in here that was better than Homer's account in The Iliad. What impressed me about this book was something entirely different, the humanizing, almost the contextualization of a king. We see Pr...more

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Jul 16, 2011 Bailey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Malouf's novel takes as its inspiration a series of events that occur near the end of Homer's The Iliad: the death of Achilles' friend Patrocolus (Book 16), Achilles' killing of Hector (Book 22), the funeral of Patroclus (Book 23), and Priam's late-night visit to Achilles to beg for the return of his son's body (Book 24).

This compact novel, with its Homericly noble prose, is surprsingly powerful. It is not the story of the gods and goddesses, but the story of humans and human failings and feelin...more

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Jun 20, 2011 Evan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Okay, I'm being stingy. This is a lovely book. As one reviewer aptly noted, Malouf bears comparison to the Greek playwrights, especially Euripides, who mined the blank spaces in Homer and created new rich narratives fully respectful of their source. No doubt, this story of fathers brought low and humanized by the mortality of their sons, speaks more to me now than when I was only a son. The ancients, Homer included, don't linger in the humble emotions that modern audiences crave. So that's where...more

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Oct 30, 2010 Rick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

Ransom is a retelling of part of the Iliad, the part after Achilles kills Hector when Priam, mourning his son’s death and anticipating the brutal conquest of his city, must decide how to reconcile a king’s duty with that of a father’s. Malouf, a prize-winning Australian novelist, does a superb job of recreating the mythic world of the heroes and gods of pre-historic Greece while at the same time humanizing the super-sized men and women of Troy and its besiegers. Priam and an elderly cart man mak...more

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Aug 25, 2010 Lauren rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a lovely little book. Oh, that sounds demeaning. I just meant that it's short -- a small gem. It is a modern-day retelling of the Achilles/Hector/Priam story -- a short but powerful episode in the "Iliad." Hector the Trojan has slain Achilles' closest friend Patroclus. In revenge Achilles kills Hector and then drags his body around the city day after day until Hector's father Priam appeals to Achilles, as a fellow father, to cease the desecration of his son's body. This short novel expl...more

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May 28, 2010 Dirk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Anyone who knows me would know I’d love this book. Homer is the cornerstone of my idea of literature, perhaps of being a person. I’ve long admired the fine Australian writer David Maloof. In the Iliad after Achilles has killed Hector and is desecrating his corpse daily, his father, Priam, loads a wagon with treasure and accompanied only by a herald drives alone into the Greek camp and begs the return of his son’s body for appropriate burial. Achilles is moved to compassion. This is Maloof’s stor...more

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May 11, 2010 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book had couple of strikes against it before I even read it. First of all, it’s a work of fiction closely based on another work of fiction—always an iffy move, in my opinion. Second of all, the work of fiction it’s based on is Homer’s Illiad, a story that should be exciting but then spends fifty pages describing a shield. When I ran across the book at the local public library, however, I saw that not only was it pretty short, but it also had a mysterious, shadowy picture of a donkey on the...more This book had couple of strikes against it before I even read it. First of all, it’s a work of fiction closely based on another work of fiction—always an iffy move, in my opinion. Second of all, the work of fiction it’s based on is Homer’s Illiad, a story that should be exciting but then spends fifty pages describing a shield. When I ran across the book at the local public library, however, I saw that not only was it pretty short, but it also had a mysterious, shadowy picture of a donkey on the front. So I decided it was worth a shot.
To recap the episode from the Illiad: the Greeks have been laying siege to Troy for the past nine years without making a whole lot of progress. Achilles, the greatest of the Greek warriors, has been refusing to fight because Agamemnon (commander of the Greek forces) has insulted him. Things are looking bad for the Greeks without Achilles, so one day, Patroclus (closest friend of Achilles) wears Achilles’ armor into battle in hopes of striking fear in the Trojans. Patroclus is killed, Achilles is devastated and goes on a murderous rampage, ultimately killing Hector, a Trojan prince and their greatest warrior. Not satisfied with merely killing him, Achilles spends the next eleven days tying up Hector’s dead body behind his chariot and dragging it around just outside the walls of Troy, much to the dismay of the Trojans. Priam, the king of Troy, personally approaches Achilles with a large amount of treasure in exchange for the body of his son. Achilles is touched and gives the old man the body of his son.

Malouf’s novel begins its narrative around the time of Patroclus’s death, and ends after Hector’s body has been returned to Troy.

I like the strong sense of the physical in this book. It makes sense thematically, with Achilles’ shocking daily abuse of the dead body of Hector serving as the inciting incident, and that physicality comes into play in each of the book’s five sections. The middle section, possibly my favorite, depicts the journey of King Priam, accompanied in buddy-comedy fashion by a simple mule cart driver, from the palace of Troy to the camp of Achilles. Along the way, the two men discuss the deaths of their respective children, cool their feet in a stream after a long day’s ride, and share a stack of pancakes together.

It’s the pancakes, and the mule cart driver’s lengthy discourse on how to cook them, that prompt a realization in Priam—“that the food that came to his table so promptly, and in such abundance, might have ingredients. That a griddlecake or pikelet might have some previous form as batter. That batter might consist of good buckwheat flour and buttermilk, and that what you experienced as goodness might depend on the thickness of the batter or the lightness of the wrist. Or that ingenious arrangements might need to be made before a thing as simple as a pikelet could make its entry into the world. Or that one of the activities a man might give his attention to, and puzzle his wits over, was the managing of these arrangements, the putting together, in an experimental way, of this or that bit of an already existing world to make something new” (Malouf 128).

On the flip side of these mundane physical pleasures are the reminders throughout the book of the violent deaths that await both Priam and Achilles. We are shown the death of Priam in a flash-forward—a messy, awkward killing at the hands of Achilles’ son. As he watches the body of Hector being prepared for its return to Troy, Achilles himself reflects that these preparations will soon be performed on his own dead body. In spite of its fixation on impending death, though, this is not a mopy, angsty book. It moves quickly, and Malouf’s economical writing style is impressive. The book is only 200 pages long, with large print and small pages, but it uses the space to create vivid scenes and engaging characters. It’s an ideal summer read—a book that’s hard to put down, but will stick with you once you’ve finished.

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Jan 27, 2010 Courtney Johnston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

On this he treated the body of Hector with contumely: he pierced the sinews at the back of both his feet from heel to ancle and passed thongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made: thus he made the body fast to his chariot, letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when he had put the goodly armour on the chariot and had himself mounted, he lashed his horses on and they flew forward nothing loth. The dust rose from Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew all abroad, and h

...more

On this he treated the body of Hector with contumely: he pierced the sinews at the back of both his feet from heel to ancle and passed thongs of ox-hide through the slits he had made: thus he made the body fast to his chariot, letting the head trail upon the ground. Then when he had put the goodly armour on the chariot and had himself mounted, he lashed his horses on and they flew forward nothing loth. The dust rose from Hector as he was being dragged along, his dark hair flew all abroad, and his head once so comely was laid low on earth, for Jove had now delivered him into the hands of his foes to do him outrage in his own land.

Thus was the head of Hector being dishonoured in the dust. His mother tore her hair, and flung her veil from her with a loud cry as she looked upon her son. His father made piteous moan, and throughout the city the people fell to weeping and wailing. It was as though the whole of frowning Ilius was being smirched with fire. Hardly could the people hold Priam back in his hot haste to rush without the gates of the city. He grovelled in the mire and besought them, calling each one of them by his name. "Let be, my friends," he cried, "and for all your sorrow, suffer me to go single-handed to the ships of the Achaeans. Let me beseech this cruel and terrible man, if maybe he will respect the feeling of his fellow-men, and have compassion on my old age. His own father is even such another as myself--Peleus, who bred him and reared him to be the bane of us Trojans, and of myself more than of all others. Many a son of mine has he slain in the flower of his youth, and yet, grieve for these as I may, I do so for one-- Hector--more than for them all, and the bitterness of my sorrow will bring me down to the house of Hades. Would that he had died in my arms, for so both his ill-starred mother who bore him, and myself, should have had the comfort of weeping and mourning over him."

The Iliad, Book XXII

This scene made such an impression on me as a child reading Greek mythology - most likely via Roger Lancelyn Green.

David Malouf's 'Ransom' does an extraordinary job of introducing Achilles and capturing the battle between him and Hector (my fingers immediately want to type something like "foremost of the Trojan warriors, shepherd of his people' - these were the hymns I grew up with).

While I found the rest of the book peacefully engrossing, it didn't measure up to the first 60 pages, except perhaps the story of Priam narrowly escaping death at the hands of Hercules as a small child.

It's a gentle and humane story that Malouf tells, and maybe that's why its hard to compete with the blood and thunder and sorrow of the original.

Guardian review

Independent review

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May 14, 2010 Jennifer (JC-S) rated it 5 of 5 stars

‘He has stepped into a space that until now was uninhabited and found a way to fill it.’
In this novel, David Malouf re-enters the world of the Iliad, to recount the story of Achilles, Patroclus and Hector and provides a very different telling of Priam’s journey to the Greek camp. And what a wonderful storytelling it is!

‘Dreams are subtle, shifting, they are meant to be read, not taken literally.’

At the end of the novel, Mr Malouf writes that the primary focus of the story is on storytelling its...more

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Feb 04, 2013 Alan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013, action-adventure

A sombre and spectacular adventure served in miniature... "Ransom" is an actual work of art. David Malouf takes one of the most famous battles of all time and bends it to his will, turning a veritable footnote into an epic quest between right and wrong. I adored this book and cannot believe that I only happened upon it by chance.

The mighty Hector falls in battle, and his body is defiled and literally dragged through the mud. For eleven days, the people of Troy watch in horror from behind their w...more

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Jul 19, 2012 Agnes Benis rated it 4 of 5 stars

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Dec 08, 2010 Laura Rittenhouse rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've never read the Iliad but I do believe Ransom was based on a small portion of that book. The snippet chosen for this novel was the ransom paid by Priam to Achilles for the release of the body of Hector, his son. To be honest, the story started out as hard work for me. I'm not sure why, it could be my personal dislike of war and men's chest-pounding. Or maybe it was the style of writing.

I really got into the story in the middle when a local carter, Somax, is introduced. The way Priam and Soma...more

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May 14, 2011 Paula Weston rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary

You don’t have to have read Homer’s Iliad to appreciate David Malouf’s short novel Ransom.

While it provides a companion piece to Homer’s epic tale, it works just as well as a stand- alone novel, thanks to Malouf’s well drawn characters and poetic prose.

Ransom provides a back story to an event that features only briefly in Homer’s poem: that of Priam, King of Troy, asking for the body of his slain son from the Greek warrior Achilles.

In Malouf’s imaginings, Priam is inspired by the gods to do some...more You don’t have to have read Homer’s Iliad to appreciate David Malouf’s short novel Ransom.

While it provides a companion piece to Homer’s epic tale, it works just as well as a stand- alone novel, thanks to Malouf’s well drawn characters and poetic prose.

Ransom provides a back story to an event that features only briefly in Homer’s poem: that of Priam, King of Troy, asking for the body of his slain son from the Greek warrior Achilles.

In Malouf’s imaginings, Priam is inspired by the gods to do something unprecedented: he decides to strip himself of all royal trappings and military protection, and go to Achilles – man to man, father to father – and ask for the return of Hector’s body.

Against all the pleas of his family and advisers, Priam sets out with a great treasure (the ransom for his son’s corpse), accompanied only by a carter and his two mules.

Through the journey to Achilles’ camp and his meeting with his son’s killer, Priam begins to see his world anew. Even the great Achilles, still grieving the death of his friend Patroclus, is affected by Priam’s actions. And both realise they have much in common as leaders, soldiers, men and fathers.

Although Ransom is rich with mythology and meticulously researched (but unobtrusive) historical detail, it is grounded firmly in the strengths and weaknesses of the human spirit.

Both Priam and Achilles are driven by guilt and grief. Achilles expresses his with violence and rage while Priam finds the strength to humble himself before his enemy. In doing so, Priam discovers the joys found in the world by lowly men like his attendant – simple pleasures he can never experience as King.

Ransom is a gentle story, but Malouf slowly and expertly builds tension, to the point this literary gem is also a page turner.

This is a book where every line and passage can be savoured – not just for the beauty of the language, but the context in which it is written.

At only 219 pages, Ransom is well worth a read for anyone who appreciates great story telling and the poetry of language. (And I love the cover!) (less)

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Nov 30, 2011 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction

I just don't know how this could have been better at being what it is. Lush yet spare, lyrical yet amusing, a fresh take on the oldest of tales... Grief-stricken Priam goes once again, a supplicant to grief-stricken Achilles, to ransom the defiled body of his heroic son Hector. It's a brilliant meditation on fathers and sons, kings and commoners, gods and men, suffused with the otherworldly gillyflower-scented and lyre-accompanied surrealness of a time when gods intermingled with humanity.

And I...more

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Nov 09, 2010 Christopher H. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure, australian-authors-translators, historical-fiction, modern-literature, my-western-canon, classics-of-antiquity, read-in-2010, favorites, favorite-rereads, mythology-mythopoeia, iliad-odyssey-homer

This is without a doubt one of the best books I've read in a while. It was so damned good that I turned around and read it again as soon as I had finished reading it the first time. It doesn't take long to read, at just over 200 pages, but it packs a big wallop. Ransom, published in 2009, is Australian poet and author David Malouf's most recent offering after nearly ten years; and I have to say that it was well worth the wait.

Malouf's novel takes as its inspiration a series of events that occur...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Amanda Mecke rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is an extraordinary retelling of an event which gets only a few lines in The Illiad, King Priam's visit to Achilles to ransom his son Hector's body for proper burial. Malaouf shows Priam as father, not King, and the "backstory" explains how this slight change in perspective, from Achilles's vengeful desecration of Hector's corpse to his accepting ransom for compassion's sake, is a masterful parable. Today's debates over the death penalty echo the same battle. The choice, Malouf shows, is no...more

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Aug 19, 2010 C.C. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Written by David Maoul, who the book jacket describes as possibly Australia's greatest living writer, this brief novel covers one small episode from Homer's "The Iliad" and examines it in exhaustive detail. The events are simple, but the thoughts and actions of the characters evoke all that's wonderful (and terrible) about the passage of human time: war, death, marriage, memories. Deeply moving, it illuminates why we return to classic stories again and again: because they've been constructed to...more

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Feb 03, 2010 Victoria Dixon rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book is like a prose poem written with emotive quicksilver instead of words. Meanings are hidden and sometimes changeable, but always inspiring sorrow, compassion and awe.

David Malouf pulls the reader through first Achilles', then Priam's grief after the deaths of Patrocles and Hector. Then with a cartload of treasure as ransom for Hector's body, the carter Somax drives King Priam of Troy through battlefields both real and metaphorical before returning with Hector and hope shrouded in the c...more

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Sep 06, 2012 Madelaine Bast rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: own-actual-book

This novel depicts the journey of Priam, the king of Troy, trying to retrieve the body of his son, Hector, who was killed by Achilles.

This is another book I had to read for school this year and, like the others, most most people don’t seem to enjoy it. I however really do like this novel. I can see how it can be a confusing novel, I was confused to (although that’s probably because I didn’t really listen when the teacher read the last two parts). But if you can get past the confusing way this no...more

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Apr 06, 2010 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: may-jun-2010

David Malouf is widely regarded as one of Australia's greatest living novelists, and Ransom sits well alongside the rest of his work. With simple, graceful prose, cinematic descriptions, and a deeply ingrained respect for two grieving heroes, Malouf both enhances and venerates Homer's ancient epic. And while the Wall Street Journal critic felt that Somax, King Priam's cart driver, was a glib addition, others disagreed, calling him ""a creation of genius, like one of those Shakespearean peasants...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Steph rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really wanted to like this book as I love mythology and 'The Song of Achilles' was amazing and so moving. However, I just didn't. I could see what it was trying to do and it was written in a lyrical and emotive way. However, I just found it dull. It tells the story of Priam's decision to go and beg Achilles' for the body of Hector back so he can honorably bury his son. And that is it...that is the whole book. I wanted to be moved by this, but Priam remained cold, introspective and seemingly ha...more

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Mar 22, 2010 Mike rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: those interested in the Trojan War, Greek mythology, Achilles, or historical fiction

Recommended to Mike by: NYTimes Book Review

Shelves: greek-mythology, achilles, priam, troy, trojan-war, patroclus, hector, hecuba, cassandra, hermes, historical-fiction

Malouf has created a masterpiece study on loss. Focusing on King Priam of Troy and Achilles victory over Priam's eldest son, Hector, Malouf never mentions the origins of the Trojan War. Paris and Helen of Troy have no place in this story. This is a story about fatherhood, the meaning of it, and the loss of a child seen through not only the eyes of Priam and his Queen, Hecuba, but also through the eyes of a commoner, Somax, who is called upon to drive Priam to Achilles' camp in an attempt to rans...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Jo Danilo marked it as to-read

I've had to shelve this. I got halfway through and then was tempted away by a friend's brilliant creation (you know who you are, Jessica!). Now I'd have to go and read the first part all over again, so I'm going to leave it for a few months and come back to it.

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Mar 12, 2010 Gregory Mose rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It takes some guts to rework material that is already a few thousand years old. David Malouf's creative retelling of a section of the Iliad is curious not simply in having been undertaken in the first place, but also in the utter naturalness in which it is done. Malouf's tone is so matter-of-fact that at times you forget that the old man you're following is Priam, King of Troy, or that the angry soldier is none other than Achilles. Malouf succeeds in humanizing the work in an utterly unostentati...more

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Dec 08, 2011 Louise rated it 3 of 5 stars

I'm very glad to have read this book. I did enjoy it, even though I didn't understand all of it. I even had to start it twice, having stumbled in my understanding less than 30 pages in. I had no real knowledge of The Iliad, or Achilles, Hector and Priam. And that was a drawback I felt, but I did a little bit of research and it made the first part more understandable. Once the action starts it is much more readable to those of us unschooled in ancient legends. Beautiful writing at times of course...more

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About David Malouf

David Malouf is the author of ten novels and six volumes of poetry. His novel The Great World was awarded both the prestigious Commonwealth Prize and the Prix Femina Estranger. Remembering Babylon was short-listed for the Booker Prize. He has also received the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Sydney, Australia.

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